Angier woman a winner

Just over a month ago, Monica Altman didn't even know if she would qualify for the Bassmaster Women's Tour Championship, which was held last weekend.

But by Saturday, with a day of fishing left on Louisiana's Cypress Black Bayou Lake, she already had boated enough keepers to win her second-straight Bassmaster event in the Co-Angler Division.

Altman won $3,250 in cash and a $40,000 Triton boat. The boat is the second she has won in a month; in September, she won her last Bassmaster event on Old Hickory Lake in Tennessee. Since she started fishing the Women's Bassmaster Trail in 2006, she has won four boats.

"Several of my friends have joked that I need to open my own boat dealership," Altman said.

Altman is trying to sell her last boat and said this one will be sold, too.

Altman was in second place after the first day of fishing on Friday. She weighed in 9 pounds, 11 ounces that day. On the second day, she took the lead with an 11-pound bag. On Sunday's final day, she said she boated a 3-pound bass early and became emotional because she had a pretty good feeling that the fish would be enough to win.

"I kept on fishing, trying to upgrade," Altman said.

She caught a 4-pound fish a little more than an hour later.

Altman's winnings (calculated from the value of boats and cash) have reached more than $131,000, the most won in the tour's amateur division.

In the women's Bassmaster trail, only pro Pam Martin-Wells of Bainbridge, Ga., has won four boats. In this event, Martin-Wells finished second in the Pro Division with a 31-pound, 11-ounce catch and won the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Women's Tour Angler of the Year trophy and the 2010 Bassmaster Classic berth that goes with it. Judy Wong of Many, La., won the Pro Division with a catch of 36-10.

At last year's championship, Altman finished second to Barbara Gaskins of Suffolk, Va., who won by just over a pound.

This time, Altman's 27-pound total was 10 pounds better than that of Gaskins, the runner-up.

Ultimately, Altman would like to fish the Pro Division, and this win, she hopes, will lead to a full-fledged sponsor.

"It puts me a little bit closer to that dream of being on the [pro] side," Altman said.

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